Alien Relic Hunter

Chapter 745: The Man-eating Forest

Mo Jue walked up to a fog perch tree as thick as a sea bowl, and said to Ke Lan and others: "The area outside the red line is relatively safe, but conventional positioning equipment often fails, and when you lose your direction , we generally choose to use the annual ring method to determine north and south." The "annual ring method" is a very ancient method of direction identification. On the earth in the old era, people often used this method when they lost their way in the forest. .

The principle is also very simple. Most plants are phototropic, and will tend to the direction of the light source during the growth process.Whether it is on the earth or on the Alpha star, the side close to the equator is always more sunny, so it can be determined that the side with relatively sparse annual rings is in the direction of the equator, while the side with denser age is in the direction of the equator. Near the pole of the hemisphere.

"At this point, the Misty Roost is the same as the trees on the earth." Mo Jue opened the backpack and found a small circular saw driven by energy crystals. Judging from the texture of the saw blade, it should be It is mixed with a high proportion of Nino alloy.

"The foggy forest is located in the northern hemisphere of Star Alpha, so the side with denser growth rings is north, and the side with thinner growth rings is south." She turned the searchlight on her helmet at an angle, facing the tree in front of her. Misty Roost then started the circular saw, "There is no need to saw down the whole tree, just saw a piece of wedge to determine the direction."

But just when Mo Jue was about to cut down the saw, a scabbard that was severely worn suddenly lay across in front of her.

"What's the matter?" Mo Jue turned her head, and the only one in the group who stopped her was a young man wearing sunglasses. From the time we met until now, this guy who has been holding a long knife and closing his eyes has not said a word... It seemed that he hadn't even opened his eyes.

As a "paratrooper from hell", Mo Jue is naturally a modified person. Her right eye looks like a normal human eyeball, but it is actually a cyborg prosthetic eye. For this reason, there is no occlusion effect at all.

"This guy...why are you still closing your eyes?" Mo Jue murmured in his heart, and took a step back, "Is there something wrong?"

"Sawing with a saw is too slow, our time is precious." Ke Lan replied for Akira Asano, "Let him come, it will be faster."

Ke Lan said this on his lips, but he was complaining in his heart: Akira Asano, you, a boy with thick eyebrows and big eyes, suddenly learned to pretend?No, this guy, since he met him, seems to be pretending to be coercive all the time, but the people around him don't feel at all abrupt about his coercion... This is probably the highest level of pretense in the legend : Invisible pretense, the most deadly.

"Let him come sooner? What do you mean?" Mo Jue froze for a moment, but still handed over the circular saw in his hand.

But Akira Asano just shook his head and didn't answer.

"Stand back a little, and be careful not to get hit." Ke Lan reminded kindly, grabbed Mo Jue's arm, and pulled her back a dozen steps.

Akira Asano held the scabbard with one hand and the handle of the scabbard tightly with the other. He only heard the clang of gold and iron from the scabbard and the mouth of the scabbard. No one else saw it except Ke Lan and Ze Luo. In the picture of the long knife being unsheathed, a gray sword light has been "embedded" into the tree trunk.

Mo Jue: "????"

In the next second, with the disappearing gray sword glow as the dividing line, the upper half of the tree trunk crashed down.

"He... he he he... this tree... he cut it off with a knife? And only once?!" Mo Jue couldn't believe his eyes, "wait a minute, he just... really Do you have a knife drawn?"

Tanning subconsciously focused on the blasphemer mecha standing at the back, and murmured, "Could it be... the Fallen Angel mecha?"

"It's just a misty roost tree with a diameter of [-] centimeters, so why make such a fuss?" Ke Lan waved his hand, walked forward, and carefully observed the annual rings on the cut surface of the trunk.

They entered the gray mist forest from the southwest, and headed north towards the red line. Judging from the growth rings of this tree, there was no deviation in the direction.

Of course, this is only because they are still in the outskirts of the foggy forest.The fog here is not too thick, and the visibility is more than ten meters. Using the nearby trees and terrain features as markers, plus the two experienced guides Mo Jue and Dan Ning... If you can get lost here , then they might as well turn around and return to the ark now.

After continuing to walk north for about 5 minutes, Mo Jue finally digested the shock, but she would still raise her eyes to glance at Akira Asano from time to time——if she guessed correctly, this person has always been hugging her. The young man holding a long knife and almost never opening his eyes should be the most effective fighter in this group.

——In the case of not counting the Fallen Angel Mecha as "one person".

"Although the annual ring method is easy to use, it is only limited to the area outside the red line." Mo Jue said to Ke Lan, "After crossing the red line, the annual rings of the mist perch tree will grow tighter - you should It is also clear that the growth rings of the mist roost 100 meters behind the red line are almost all crowded together, and it is impossible to tell which is dense and which is sparse.”

"Well, if the annual ring method can still be used after crossing the red line, this forest will not be so scary as people describe it." Ke Lan said with a relaxed tone, "You 'lumberjacks' will also benefit greatly. It's dropped... After all, rare things are more expensive."

"Since you can break the record of that expedition team, you must have some unique tricks." 33 said from the side, "Lumberjack... since the end of the old era, this profession has disappeared for nearly 1000 years gone."

"In the area behind the red line, the visibility will drop rapidly. If you walk about 100 meters away, the visibility will be reduced to less than half a meter. You can't even see your companion standing beside you..." Mo Jue looked enviously He glanced at the fog around him, "But if your equipment for dispelling the fog can continue to function after the red line, the fog won't hinder you too much."

"Then besides the fog itself, is there anything else that needs attention?" Ke Lan asked, "If you can travel unimpeded as long as you can block the fog at a distance of more than ten meters, the gray fog forest will not become a restricted area, right?"

"The fog is only the best problem to solve, but the real trouble is hidden in the fog... As for the things to pay attention to, the whole forest is there." Mo Jue said.

Ke Lan: "You might as well speak more clearly."

"It's hard for me to describe those things clearly to you in words. You will understand when you actually encounter them." Mo Jue said with a frown.

"You won't be silenced by us after you tell everything you know?" 33 joked casually.

"Silence?" Mo Jue showed a bitter smile on his face, "I'm afraid...we will all die in this forest before you all silence me."

"When you decided to come in with us, you already had the will to die?" Ivan couldn't help asking.

"Anyway, you saved my life. If you want to take it, you should pay it off. As long as my brother is still alive." Mo Jue said indifferently.

"It's not so pessimistic, is it?" Ke Lan touched his nose, "When you explored to a depth of 500 meters last time, how many people did you lose?"

"Two people." Mo Jue replied.

"How many people were there in total for that exploration operation?"

"Eleven."

"Only two of the eleven people lost. You are much better than the expedition team in the record." Ke Lan praised, "Nearly fifty people crossed the red line, and only less than twenty returned in the end. Moreover, their team strength, equipment and logistics level are also better than yours, but the distance they can explore is not as far as yours."

"But I know that when we went deeper than ten meters that time, the whole army would be wiped out when we waited for our end." Mo Jue said, "Actually, when we broke the record of that expedition team, we were still at full strength. The individual disappeared before the final return."

"How did you disappear? Can you tell me the process?" Ke Lan asked curiously, "Also, what did you encounter at 500 meters away? Why do you say that if you walk more than ten meters forward, the whole army will be wiped out?"

"I don't know." Mo Jue shook his head. "At that time, I was not the leader of the loggers... The leader of the team was my father. He knew more about the foggy forest than me."

"What about your father?" Ke Lan regretted it as soon as he asked... Now that Mo Jue has become the team leader, his father has passed away in all likelihood - judging by Mo Jue's age , his father should not be old enough to have to retire.

"He was one of the two people we lost during that exploration operation." Mo Jue's answer was just as Ke Lan had vaguely guessed just now, "After that, I became the new team leader, and I will no longer allow Anyone in the team goes deeper into the foggy forest... the wood at 200 meters is enough for us to live a comfortable life."

"It seems that your father belongs to the kind of person with a pioneering spirit, but it's a pity that your daughter is more timid." 33 commented.

"This is not cowardly, I am thinking of everyone... We just want to protect our own lives. We are loggers, not explorers... If we want to pursue excitement, why don't we become relic hunters?"

"Why does it feel like I've been dissed..." Ke Lan touched the tip of his nose again with some guilt, and said to himself.

Mo Jue wanted to say something, but Dan Ning, who was walking in the front, suddenly stopped and said in a deep voice, "Here we are!"

What he was referring to was naturally the junction of the restricted area of ​​the gray fog forest and the outer area - the "red line".

Right in front of everyone, a thick and solid wall of fog spread, and compared with this wall of fog, the fog beyond the red line was simply too thin.

The most amazing thing is that although the fog in the two areas is connected to each other and there are signs of flow between them, the concentrations of each other will not interfere with each other - Ke Lan couldn't help but think of an idiom: clear and distinct.

The allusion of this idiom comes from the two tributaries of the Yellow River in China: the Weihe River and the Jinghe River. When these two rivers come together, there will be a strange landscape with clear and clear turbidity-one side of the river is as clear and green as emerald, and the other side is as clear as emerald. It is a muddy turbid current carrying a large amount of sediment, and the dividing line between the two bodies of water is as clear as if it was drawn with a brush.And the scene before Ke Lan's eyes is almost the same as this clear-cut spectacle.

"Even if you can disperse the fog, I still suggest to fasten the safety rope." Mo Jue said.

The "safety rope" she refers to is a steel core cable with a length of more than 50 meters. The auxiliary rope of the buckle connects itself to the main rope... In this way, the situation of falling behind and missing can be avoided to a certain extent.

It stands to reason that if everyone is strung together like grasshoppers on a rope, no one will get lost with the large army... But it is recorded that all expeditions who tried to enter the gray fog forest carried this kind of equipment, but Even if they tie themselves to the safety rope, the missing people are still missing... Some people even went out of the forest without realizing it, only to find the safety rope and the "lock" on the safety rope The rest of the companions are missing.

"Put on the gas masks too." Ke Lan looked at the others and put on the masks first.

Blocking the fog depends on Ze Luo's space ability, but if a battle occurs next, Ze Luo may not be able to take care of everyone.

After doing all this, Ke Lan took a deep breath of the sour air in the mask that had the unique sour smell of oxygen generator reaction, grabbed the auxiliary rope around his waist with one hand, put the other on the heavy main rope, and stepped over The red line walked into the fog wall.

"Zero, cancel the barrier first, and try to see how powerful the fog is."

"Visibility... about two to three meters." 33's voice came from Ke Lan's right hand side. He was no more than five steps away from Ke Lan, but his voice seemed to come from 50 meters away.

These fogs can not only obstruct vision, but also affect the transmission of sound.

Ke Lan took another two steps forward, and when he looked up, he happened to see a black skeleton looking at him.

"Open the barrier."

As soon as the words fell, the surrounding fog was suddenly pushed away by an invisible big hand, and Ke Lan could see clearly that in front of him was a fog-roost tree hugged by two people, and the skeleton just now was A human skeleton almost fused with a tree trunk.

Most of this skeleton has been embedded in the tree, and the gaps between the bones are almost completely filled with wood fibers... It looks a bit like the fossils of ancient creatures, except that the stones have been replaced with wood.

From the helmet buckled on the skull, it can be confirmed that the deceased was a soldier of the Ninth Independent Armored Unit of the Field Corps... that is, a member of the armored unit of 500 people.

"Hey, this skeleton..." 33 also noticed the situation here, "Why is it embedded in the trunk? Could it be that this guy leaned against the tree when he died, and then the tree grew and wrapped the skeleton in?"

"It will take at least 300 years for this misty perch tree to grow to this extent... When this person died, the tree was already this thick, and he was 'swallowed' by this tree. Mo Jue's face turned pale, "I told you a long time ago that this forest can eat people."

(End of this chapter)